


The Devil's in the Details

by prototyping



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: .........my attempts to categorize this fic are a mess, Action, Fighting, Gen, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Violence, fight fic, gen category with shippy undertones, i have a lot of Thoughts about the way he swore himself to her like that, it's not gory but i'll say light m to be safe??, not really /shippy/ per se but listen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 00:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prototyping/pseuds/prototyping
Summary: When Byleth pursues Kronya, Dimitri proves his fealty to her cause.





	The Devil's in the Details

Byleth’s tired muscles screamed as she swung her sword overhead in a wide arc, dragging it across the Demonic Beast’s throat. Its hide was thick—the effort required both hands and all her strength, but the motion quickly grew smoother as she felt the blade pierce the leathery skin. From there it was like slicing through paper, and the grim satisfaction of her victory made her forget the ache of fatigue.

The monster’s wounded roar was cut short. Black blood ran down her blade and splattered her arms, hot and faintly acidic. Ignoring the prickles of pain, she wrenched her sword free and quickly leapt backwards. She was out of its shadow and turning away before its thrashing body hit the ground.

She glanced over the battlefield as she allowed herself a few seconds of rest. It was chaos, like all battles, but she had long since learned—_been taught_, she thought with a renewed sting of grief—what to look for. When nothing of critical importance caught her eye, she sucked in a deep breath and prepared to run ahead.

“Professor!”

The voice was like a slap rousing her from sleep. She’d almost forgotten about him.

Byleth watched Dimitri jog over. The top half of his lance looked painted, so thickly was it drenched in red blood and black ichor. His face was grim but his eyes alert and searching as he scanned her face.

She answered his unspoken questions—_Are you alright? Shall we proceed?_—with a small nod. They were beyond the need for words at this point. He had sworn his loyalty to her again and again and was well aware of her intentions. She didn’t need to explain that she was going to keep pushing through. She didn’t need to warn that they would be proceeding separately from their forces, that they would likely have no backup other than each other from here on out. She didn’t need to remind him that this was her fight, her vendetta, or that he was under no obligation to risk his life for it.

She didn’t need to say anything, because she knew his response would be the same, unwavering answer no matter what.

Byleth headed deeper into the forest. Dimitri followed.

They were intercepted about when she expected, just a little ways beyond where the trees ended. While there were no monsters in sight, there were still more than enough human forces to be troublesome. A quick scan revealed no archers, but she made note of the mages lingering behind the frontlines.

At her side, she knew Dimitri was doing the same. He took a step closer to her, facing her without ever looking away from the small army in front of them. She recognized the subtle gesture for what it was.

She lifted her eyes over the enemies’ heads, to the glimpse of stone columns in the distance.

There.

_That’s where she is._

Byleth felt it as certainly as she could tell the direction of the sun with her eyes closed.

_Too many,_ she decided, looking again at the opposing forces. Not a single soldier had moved yet, although the tension in the air was almost tangible. Perhaps they were wary, but that was all. They would still throw their lives away, every one of them.

_And for what?_ a small voice wondered, but Byleth quickly smothered it. It didn’t matter—it _wouldn’t_ matter once they were dead.

Dimitri remained silent, calm and composed despite the ice in his gaze, but she could practically feel him bristling with anticipation, the hatred coming off of him in waves. And still he waited for her.

Too many enemies, and not enough time. She couldn’t risk wasting this chance.

_I will fight as you command,_ he had vowed.

Her fingers squeezed the hilt of her sword until they ached, and then eased back into a proper hold.

_I will kill anyone should you ask it of me._

Those words rang clear and strong and promising.

Byleth’s voice was calm and quiet.

“Remove them.”

Dimitri’s lance shaft creaked beneath his grip. That was the only warning.

The armored soldiers in front fell first, weapons broken and breastplates crumpled and shattered. The half dozen swordsmen who followed fared no better: he crashed into them like a wave and took their lives just as indiscriminately. A two-handed blow sliced one man open from hip to shoulder. A thrust pierced two. As Dimitri ripped the lance from their chests without pausing, his grip shifted, sliding back to the bladeless end and whipping out a wide swing behind himself. The blade caught another enemy across the throat and dropped him instantly in a mist of red. In all, it hadn’t taken more than a few seconds.

Byleth imagined this was how it felt to command a storm.

Dimitri carved a bloody path through the enemy forces and she followed his trail of death. She burned arrows from the air and countered incoming spells, but offensively she was almost unnecessary. He flowed from one enemy to the next, a force of pure speed and raw strength that never stopped moving. He took a glancing blow here and there, but even that didn’t slow him. His sole focus was pushing forward and he did so, brutal and merciless and chillingly detached in how effectively he struck down anyone within reach. If his first blow landed, he didn’t need a second.

He had been an efficient fighter for as long as Byleth knew him—and yet, this was _different_, and she was too familiar with his fighting style by now to miss those differences. There was no regard for his weapon in the way he fought now: he didn’t hold back his strength, but put his all into every swing, every jab, every single movement.

When he stabbed a man through the thigh and pulled back too quickly, the shaft snapped in two—but without missing a beat Dimitri used the stick as a bludgeon and brought it down on another soldier’s arm, snapping the elbow into an unnatural angle, before spinning the weapon around in his fingers and jamming the broken, jagged end through the next enemy’s ribs. He snatched the sword from the man’s limp fingers and switched up his style effortlessly, parrying a sweep at his head hard enough to knock the blade from his assailant’s grasp.

As soon as one weapon broke—which was often—he would steal another. He didn’t hesitate to use his body, either. He toppled men twice his size with a well-aimed punch. He broke bones with a hard strike or kick. He drove an elbow into a man’s head with a loud snap that might have been his neck breaking.

Byleth never felt as though fighting alongside someone might hinder him more than help, and yet, watching him move like this—unrestrained, _uncontrolled_—made her reluctant to break his concentration with the risk of friendly fire. She kept her distance and let him roar.

Dimitri was still efficient, now more than ever, but the more she watched, the less she recognized him. There was no honor in the way he fought now, no respect for his fellow man, no hesitation towards hurting and killing. He was like a man possessed—the same body, the same strength, but with a completely different will driving both.

And she envied him for all of it.

For the first time that she could remember, she felt jealous of someone. She wanted that monstrous strength—she wanted not just to kill, but to punish, to _destroy_, utterly and irrevocably. She wanted to paint the earth like he did in streams of angry scarlet. She wanted to break bones beneath her hands, to hear screams of pain loud enough to drown out the one she’d been holding back for the last month.

She wanted Kronya to hear it all from where she was hiding, to know that she would feel the same, _worse_—

So were Byleth’s heated thoughts, until she caught a glimpse of Dimitri’s expression.

The dark bloodstains on his face were all wrong, a jarring contrast to his fair skin and bright eyes and gentle disposition—except there was nothing gentle in the cold, sharp grin splitting his face.

It didn’t waver when an enemy’s lance grazed his side, nor when he caught the shaft and stopped the soldier short. It was still there as he shoved the lance back at his attacker so hard that the blunt end pierced the man’s stomach and burst from his back. If anything, that grin widened.

Without so much as slowing, Dimitri kicked the dying man off the lance, spun in place, and needed only a split-second to take aim and hurl it at one of the mages. The blade sank deep into the woman’s chest and the spell in her hands fizzled into nothing long before she hit the ground.

In that moment Byleth had full view of Dimitri’s face, and even from here she could tell he looked ecstatic. Euphoric. His eyes were hard with hatred but that smile spoke of something darker.

For the first time in weeks, that grating, aching grief in her chest was forgotten, as was her brief taste of bloodlust. For the first time in so long, she felt something other than sorrow and rage.

Fear. Concern.

Something moved on her left. She reacted instinctively and lashed out, the Sword of the Creator expanding to strike down the swordsman rushing towards her.

_“Professor!”_

She looked back and met Dimitri’s gaze. The contempt in his eyes had abated for the second needed to look at her and his mouth was once again a grim frown, that unnerving smile nowhere to be seen. It was such a stark contrast that she almost wondered if she’d imagined it.

“Go, while their numbers are thin!” he called. “I’ll finish here and follow you!” His voice was rough and brusque—perhaps with fatigue, perhaps with something else.

A hundred thoughts buzzed in her head along with twice as many questions, but Byleth knew the battlefield wasn’t the place for either. Dimitri had bought her the chance she wanted; wasting it, even with good intentions, was a kind of disrespect he didn’t deserve.

She held his stare long enough to nod her agreement, her thanks, and her expectation that he would make good on his word.

And then she turned and ran on.

* * *

When Byleth stirred, something felt off. A _lot_ of things felt off.

It took her drowsy, exhausted mind a few moments to remember why, but in the meantime she took quick stock of herself as well as she was able. Her head throbbed fiercely. Her body was sore all over, but she felt light, with a strange tingling in her limbs. She also felt too warm, and something was moving. She was moving.

She forced her heavy eyes open, only to wince in the harsh sunlight and close them again. She turned her face away and into something dark and warm, something that hummed faintly against her skin when a voice spoke just above her.

“Professor? Are you awake?”

_Sothis?_ she wondered groggily, but then the memory hit her. No. Sothis was… not _gone_, not really, but the thought hurt a little all the same.

Byleth groaned listlessly in response. She was awake, barely, but she didn’t want to be.

As difficult as it was to focus, she still caught the relief in Dimitri’s tone. “Don’t worry. We’re almost at the monastery.”

She mumbled what she hoped sounded like _Thanks_ and went on hiding against his chest. She couldn’t remember why he was carrying her, but it didn’t matter. She trusted him to get her to wherever she needed to be.

Byleth’s consciousness faded in and out of focus. Half-finished thoughts and disjointed memories of battle flitted through her head, too quickly to grasp, but one kept returning to dangle in front of her, again and again in mockery, threatening to provoke emotions that she was currently too tired to feel.

“I didn’t kill her,” she whispered. “Did I.”

She felt Dimitri stop. It felt like a while before he answered.

“No. But she is dead, for what it’s worth.” He hesitated. “...I apologize. Truly. Had I been faster, I could have given you the opening you needed. I could have made certain she died by your hand.” The pain in his voice sounded so genuine, the regret so sincere.

With effort, Byleth lifted her heavy head and propped it against his shoulder. Her vision swam. Thinking was hard. All the same, she recognized the self-deprecation in his face—which was no longer stained with blood or hardened with contempt, she noticed.

_Did_ she imagine the cruelty in his expression before? He was back to his familiar, unassuming self again—and criticizing himself, no less, for not helping her more than he already had. As if he hadn’t walked willingly into a trap and slaughtered dozens without a second thought, all on her personal whim.

This was the Dimitri she knew: selfless, considerate, and unsuitably soft for a rising king. Byleth was so tired and so much had happened. She could barely think straight. She must have been remembering things wrong, surely.

Slowly, laboriously, she raised her hand, but she only made it as far as gripping the front of his uniform weakly.

“No,” she said simply, gently. She tried to smile as he looked at her, but she wasn’t sure she succeeded. Every muscle ached and weighed a ton. “I got… what I came for. Thanks to you.” Her eyes drifted closed as she paused for breath. She quickly gave up on trying to open them again. “I’m grateful.”

She felt herself go slack as the sunlight pressing on her eyelids grew dark. It was hard to tell right then, slipping as swiftly back into sleep as she was, but she thought she might have felt his careful grip on her shift a little; she thought his soft voice was a little closer when he spoke again.

“As am I. And we won’t stop there, Professor. I swear it on my life—we _will_ see our enemies pay.”

Byleth’s last, fading thought was how odd it was that he sounded so cold when he felt so warm—that his voice was filled with venom even as it comforted her.

“All of them,” he hissed. _“One by one.”_


End file.
